Breaking the Surface
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: The feel of his hand on the small of her back, she pretends to hate when he does that she doesn't need to be led, she extrapolates that sensation over her entire body, wonders what his chest would feel like pressed against her spine.


_Thanks to jenbachand. She's sitting right across from me right now (so cool), and she had to remind me she beta'd it for me. _

_ I'm... dumb._

* * *

  
She knows he's standing too close; for the first time, he actually acknowledges the fact instead of pretending that they need to be in such cramped proximity to adequately peruse a court dossier.

"God, Liv, did you brush your teeth this morning?" she says nothing, nothing about the fact that it's 2 am and that morning was well over twelve hours ago. She says nothing, doesn't acknowledge his attempt to break the ice. Her skin feels oily, like she hasn't showered in days, hair limp and out of control; the muscles at the back of Olivia's neck half all but atrophied, having been twisted at such an awkward angle for the past twelve hours.

A breeze passes through the precinct-autumn air never smells fresh in the city-and picks up the aroma of coffee, carrying it under her nostrils. It's all she can do not to vomit; too many hours of acrid coffee and calculated avoidance.

Perhaps, she thinks, they should have been split up last year, perhaps they should have. A clean break, it would have been a mostly clean break, leaving her only to wonder 'what if?' Maybe they would have been better off that way, not having to dance around issues that now materialized at the drop of a hat.

She only thinks about this when they stand too close together (and every other time, and every other single time she sees his fucking face), they stand too close and she tries to forget that she knows exactly what she's missing. The feel of his hand on the small of her back (she pretends to hate when he does that; she doesn't need to be led), she extrapolates that sensation over her entire body, wonders what his chest would feel like pressed against her spine.

"Liv," he asks, laying the back of his fingers on her cheeks. "You're flushed, you okay?" Why is he touching her? Why would he possibly feel like he has the right to touch her? (Because he does...)

There are words that come to mind, but she doesn't speak them, "I'm not okay, Elliot. And you and I are not okay, and if you and I aren't okay, I'm not okay. I'm not well at all." But instead she shrugs and cranes her neck, trying to relieve some of the tension. "It's two in the morning, how are you doing?"

There's something that flashes in his eyes and she doesn't know how to categorize it; dangerous, maybe. "Don't wanna fuck up your second chance with the wife," comes out of her mouth before she knows what the hell she's doing and when her own ears pick up her words, she twitches and knocks a mug of stale, day-old coffee sloshing over the desk in front of them.

Elliot does nothing, just watches the dark roast drip between the crevice where the desk meets the wall. Jaw fixed (like it is when he's trying not to slam some pedophile's head through a wall) he just stares and stares and Olivia's mind begins running double time to make up for it. "Shit, El, I didn't mean to-"

"The papers went through last month, I'm not... we're not..." His jaw relaxes and for a moment, his chin falls to his chest, like he's been defeated; she hates seeing him like that more than anything else. "There's no second chance."

Nothing in his voice holds any note of remorse and she thinks that she would rather be any place right now then here, because there's nothing to say; how would she say that this is her version of good news, how would she say that a very large part of her life hangs upon how he says 'Hello' to her in the morning. "That... I didn't know, Elliot, that... sucks, do you want to..."

"She wanted to try again," staring ahead again, but just to avoid her. He's no longer upset, no longer reconciling the demons that were batting clean up. Olivia for a moment is a fly on the wall, watching his hard-hidden emotions pass over his face quickly. "I didn't." He finishes, voice defiant and she feels like he's had a breakthrough... or something.

She attempts to play it off as nothing, as just another 'thing'. "Okay."

His fingers are on the edge of the paper, stroking; he'll get a paper cut, she wants him to get a paper cut so he'll stop talking, start swearing, overreact, do anything but bare himself when there's a floodgate about to break in her. "You know I wanted to think that it was because of you, but it wasn't, not all of it."

Olivia blinks; no, she won't say anything, swallows her words and squeezes her eyes shut and tries to remember that they're still at work, that people can still see them, hear them... that people haven't forgotten what happened between them last year.  
"But some of it was," his voice is softer when he says this and all of a sudden her stomach is churning.

"Some of it was," he repeats and turns to look at her, face a blank canvas. Bottoming out, the floor has dropped from beneath them and her head is swimming.

Olivia's left hand is gripping the lip of the desk so hard that her knuckles are beyond-white; this is too much. Not at two a.m. and not in a police station in Manhattan. It should have happened somewhere else, when they weren't- "Oh," it's a whisper; she didn't mean for it to be a whisper.

Introspection has set in, and he's speaking in a more docile tone; "You know we were married at eighteen and... not once, not once in twenty-three years, never, I never stepped out, you know?" She didn't before, but she does now. "But there were times; I thought about it... in the last few years, I thought about it a lot." Olivia wonders if he's even speaking to her anymore; he sounds too far away.

Elliot sits back in his chair, "I thought maybe I'd rushed into things, back before I went into the Corp, that I needed to be married, have a family." There's a pause and she shifts uncomfortably wanting nothing more than to get back to the case. "I love my kids, grateful for them every day but I can't help but think, you know... I don't know, I just... I think if I'd never met you I'd still be with her, trying to tough it out, some bullshit like that."

This time, the pause is pregnant with the expectation that she will say something but she's not sure she could speak if she tried; her mouth has gone completely dry. But she can't help the way she feels, she came to terms with that fact a long time ago. "I don't know," she says, feels like an ass.

His hands are back on the file then, "Yeah," he's embarrassed. "Yeah, I don't, yeah."

"El, don't-"

This is more complicated than it has to be, it really is, but neither of them can seem to summon up the courage to say that.

"Listen, it's getting late, maybe we should head ho-"

Olivia swears she can taste blood, she's biting her top lip so hard; sad to say, she's never been this scared in her life, not even when looking down the shiny barrel of a .45. "The only regret running through my head when Guitano was... was..."

He's all ears, intent on hearing every word out of her mouth.

"Never letting you know that you're the only thing in my life that's... right." She blinks and wants to run, fucking run anywhere that he isn't. "And that it's never been enough; I've always needed you, more... every day."

There's nothing then, just staticy air and the muted sounds of the traffic on the street below. And they're looking at each other.  
And when he breaks the ice this time, she's never been happier to hear him say anything else.

With a smile, he says, "Sorta sneaks up on yah, doesn't it?"

Olivia just nods slowly and smiles, shifting the file a little closer to him.

Just closer.


End file.
